High and Low Stimulus-Driven Conflict Engage Segregated Brain Networks, Not Quantitatively Different Resources

Abstract

Task-irrelevant information is constantly present in our environment and may interfere with the processing of the information necessary to achieve goaldirected behavior. While task goals determine which information must be suppressed, the demand for inhibitory control depends on the strength of the interference induced by incoming, task-irrelevant information. Whether the same or distinct inhibitory processes are engaged to suppress various degrees of interference from task-irrelevant information remains largely unresolved. We investigated this question by manipulating the strength of the conflict induced by automatic word reading in a classical color Stroop task. High conflict was induced by presenting words in participant's native language and low conflict by presenting words in a less familiar language. Behavioral performance and electrical neuroimaging analyses of eventrelated potentials to the words were analyzed following a two-by-two within-subject design with factors conflict strength (high; low) and color word/word ink congruency (congruent; incongruent). Behaviorally, we observed a significant conflict strength 9 congruency driven by a smaller Stroop effect in the low-than high conflict condition. Electrophysiologically, we observed a significant conflict strength 9 congruency interaction at the topographic level during the period of the N450 components, indicative of the engagement of distinct configurations of brain networks. No such interaction was found at the level of response strength. Electrical sources analyses localized the topographic effect within the anterior cingulate cortex and basal ganglia, left middle frontal and occipital areas. We interpret our results in terms of qualitatively distinct executive mechanisms for reactive inhibitory control in conditions of high versus low stimulus-driven conflict.

The effects of high-frequency rTMS over the left DLPFC on cognitive control in young healthy participants

“…We also found that the N450 amplitudes were enhanced by rTMS under the incongruent condition during the Stroop task but not under the congruent condition. In both the current study and previous studies, the N450 component demonstrated enhanced amplitudes in response to incongruent stimuli [63, 64], which requires a greater recruitment of cognitive resources [28, 65] from the ACC (a conflict evaluator) and DLPFC (a cognitive control implementer) [30]. Our results suggest that rTMS had a greater effect on the neural circuitry of the left DLPFC-cingulate cortex in situations during which additional cognitive resources are required (e.g., incongruent stimuli) than situations in which fewer cognitive resources are necessary.…”

Electrophysiological Explorations of the Bilingual Advantage: Evidence from a Stroop Task

“…For example, previous literature has demonstrated smaller Stroop interference effects in the L2 than in the L1 in bilinguals [82]–[86]. This has been attributed to a ‘reduced automaticity’ of the L2 ([22], [87]; see also the Discussion); in other words, bilinguals experience smaller interference effects in the L2 than in the L1 not because of enhanced cognitive control, but because of a smaller influence of the distracting word.…”

The role of auditory cortices in the retrieval of single‐trial auditory–visual object memories

“…The electrical neuroimaging analyses entailed the following. As these methods have been described in several recent reviews (Murray et al, 2008;Tzovara et al, 2012;Koenig et al, 2014) and have been used extensively in ERP studies of sensation and perception (Berchio et al, 2014;Chouiter et al, 2014;Hardmeier et al, 2014;Hauthal et al, 2014;Skrandies, 2014;Altieri et al, 2015), we provide only the essential details here.…”